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CUNNING-CUNNING AND HIS MERRY COMRADES 



















• • 


CUNNING-CUNNING 
AND HIS MERRY COMRADES 

(A “Really True Story” of City Birds) 


By 

MARY IRVING HUSTED 

Illustrated from photographs and drawings by the author 



BOSTON 

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. 




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Copyright, 1932, 

By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 

All Rights Reserved 

Cunning-Cunning and His Merry Comrades 


SEP 16 1532 


©CiA 


54559 




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To 

the Many Friends 
of Cunning-Cunning 

















FOREWORD 

Darwin told of the great intelligence of pigeons and of their devotion to their 
owners. In India Dhan Gopal Mukerji writes: “Love and care have been showered 
on pigeons for centuries by emperors, princes, and queens in their marble palaces.” 
He adds that millions of boys and girls have pet fantails, pouters, and carriers. 

Many of us have fed the pigeons of St. Mark’s, Venice, and have watched the 
children in the Public Garden, Boston, or in Gramercy Park, New York, surrounded 
by hosts of these “city birds.” 

Cunning-Cunning was a carrier, and the leader of a small group of pigeons that 
made their home behind the decorations on the facade of a theatre in a great city. These 
birds numbered among their friends many distinguished actors and actresses. 

M. I. FI. 








CONTENTS 


Chapter I 
Chapter II 
Chapter III 
Chapter IV 


The Nest in the Awning 
Cunning-Cunning Learns to Fly 
The Rules of the Window 
Brownie’s Exploration 


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ILLUSTRATIONS 


PACE 

Ready for breakfast. Frontispiece 

It was a warm morning in spring. . 

Father-bird and Mother-bird came home. iy 

She sat in the sunshine and gently opened and shut her wings . . . .19 

Mother-bird and some friends had “come to breakfast”.25 

Quaker Bird.29 

The Lady would not serve breakfast earlier.31 

I am sure his mother had taken him to the circus.33 

Cunning-Cunning knew that it was his window.37 

Cunning-Cunning and Cunningette ..39 

Little Brown Bird had come early.41 

Crowding each other in their eagerness.45 

The Rose Bush. 47 


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THE COMRADES 


Cunning-Cunning 

A small dark gray pigeon with a marked 
strain of the carrier showing in his hooked 
beak. 

Brownie 

A young brown bird. 

CuNNINGETTE 

Daughter of Cunning-Cunning. 

Quaker Bird 

Beautiful gray pigeon with black bands on 
his wings. 

The Acrobat 

A bird who longs to join the circus. 

The Blind Beggar 

A bird who always tips his head and uses his 
right eye. 


The rest of the “Merry Comrades” 









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CUNNING-CUNNING AND HIS MERRY COMRADES 

CHAPTER I 

THE NEST IN THE AWNING 

Peep; Peep! A little Mother-bird is feeling lonely to-night. The man who goes 
round and round the great house, leaving behind him shining window-panes, had not 



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known that she and Father-bird had made their nest in the folds of a stout awning. 
Such a roomy pocket it was! Just the nicest home for little baby birds. And that 
morning, wishing to clean the whole window, he had put down the awning, and given 
the nest and half-grown birds an unexpected flight. 





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The Lady-who-loves-little-birds, and had loved this dear family of pigeons best of 
all, had come home late in the afternoon to find her awning down and a quiet win¬ 
dow instead of a noisy one. So she, too, felt lonely, for she had rejoiced to waken 
in the early morning to the sound of baby voices eagerly calling for their breakfast 












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—a persistent “E-e-eep! E-e-eep! E-e-eep! ” Quietly the Lady put up the awning, and 
soon Father-bird and Mother-bird came home. 

When the bright sun of a new day shone warm and golden across the window¬ 
sill, the Lady called softly in the voice her bird-family knew, and Mother-bird came 
and sat on the gray stone ledge of the window. She was not hungry this morning, 
but the sun felt very good indeed, and she knew that the Lady was close beside her. 



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Father-bird and Mother-bird Came Home 











So she sat in the sunshine and gently opened and shut her wings, letting the warm air 
stir the down beneath. 

The Lady talked to Mother-bird and begged her to make a new nest in the awn¬ 
ing. She promised that if there were more baby-birds she would protect them, and 
Mother-bird seemed to listen. 

The next morning, when the Lady went to the window, Mother-bird was wait¬ 
ing for her—walking up and down thoughtfully; and when the Lady held out her 
hand full of cracker-crumbs, little Mother-bird came and daintily ate her breakfast. 



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She seemed so very thoughtful .hat the Lady wondered, “Can she be planning a new 
nest!” 

The awning was fastened tight now. Where the rope was wound round and 
round the iron hook the Lady had woven coarse string in and out between the coils, 
putting in many savagedooking pins, and ]ust above the hook had fastened a large 
white paper saying, “Don’t, Don’t , Don’t let down this awning! 

And what do you think! The next day there was a flutter of wings, and, sure 


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enough, straight to the pocket in the awning flew Father-bird, a stick in his beak. 
Happy and busy were Father-bird and Mother-bird now. There were quiet 
days, and then early one morning the Lady woke and listened, for she thought 
a faint, tiny voice said E-eep. The Lady could not be sure. The following morn¬ 
ing she listened again, and wondered whether she were still dreaming, but on the third 
day she knew—there was a wee baby bird in the awning-home. 


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♦ 


The Lady was so glad for little Mother-bird! When the baby grew big enough 
to be left alone, Mother-bird would come to feed out of the Lady s hand, and then sit 
for a few minutes in the corner of the window-ledge. The Lady talked often to 
Mother-bird, and while he was still in his nest-home Baby-bird learned to know the 

voice of the Lady. 












CHAPTER II 

CUNNING-CUNNING LEARNS TO FLY 

One morning Mother-bird and some friends who had “come to breakfast” were 
busy picking up corn and seed on the stone ledge of the window. They were so hun¬ 
gry, and there were so many tiny pieces to be picked up, that they hardly noticed the 
sound of little wings as Cunning-Cunning made his first flight right to the Lady’s win- 



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dow. But to Cunning-Cunning the journey seemed as long as a trip to Alaska would 
have seemed to the Lady. By the time his baby eyes saw Mother-bird upon the win¬ 
dow-ledge, his wings were almost too tired to move, and when he reached the ledge of 
the window he could only grasp the edge of the stone with his baby claws and cling to 
it like a little bat. Nobody stopped eating to look at him, but he was not lonely, be¬ 
cause Mother-bird was near. So Cunning-Cunning rested until he could gather 
strength enough to climb over the edge and on to the top. And when he did climb over 



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Mother-bird and Some Friends Had “Come to Breakfast 















and stand among his mother’s guests, what a dear funny little bird he was! Such 
a big head and such a little body, and almost no tail at all. Of couise he wore no hat, 
but he certainly wore the trimming of one, for a whole bunch of feathers stood out on 
one side of his head, which made him look dressed up foi his entrance into society. 

That very first morning he ate out of the Lady’s hand. 



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CHAPTER III 

THE RULES OF THE WINDOW 
Cunning-Cunning and his friends knew perfectly well the “Rules of the Win¬ 
dow. The Lady never came out and flew about in the air with them, and they must 
never go in through the window and walk about the room with her. And this rule 
they kept very well with exceptions. There was one day when Cunningette got so 
excited playing with another little pigeon that she forgot to be careful where she put 



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her feet, and so fell behind the radiator and had to be lifted out, and there was another 
day when Quaker-bird was pushed off of the sill right down into the scrap-basket, 
and the inside of the basket proved so new and interesting to Quaker-bird that the 
Lady wondered if she meant to stay and keep the basket for a nest. 



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Quaker-bird 


















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Another Rule of the Window which all the pigeons understood was that Break- 
fast-Time was 8 o’clock. The Lady would not serve breakfast earlier. They could 
come as early as they chose, even in winter, and, fluffing themselves into feather balls 
against the window-pane, watch for the Lady s waking. But they must not join 



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their little voices in an “Oo-oo! Oo-oo!” (“Hurry, hurry, please hurry!”) until the big 
sun clock said 8 a.m. (Cunning-Cunning and his friends all wore warm feather stock¬ 
ings in cold weather, so they did not mind that there was no fire where they could “toast 
their toes” while they waited.) 

Could you ever imagine that any bird would want to climb a window-pane? Of 
course not. But there was one little gray bird whose mother I am sure had taken him to 













the circus, so determined was he to climb straight up from the sill to the top of the 
glass. The Lady named him “The Acrobat,” and never did he outgrow his wish to 
belong to the circus. 

The one rule these pigeons never could remember was the rule about eating: 
“Enough is as good as a feast.” They always had to have the feast. The Blind 
Beggar persisted in making himself sick because he would eat everything his people- 
friends offered him. 



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Many of the larger pigeons thought the window was their very own, and tried to 
drive the Currier birds away. But Cunning-Cunning knew it was his window, and 
when the paper bag of pigeon food was tipped to the edge of the sill, only Cunning- 
Cunning ventured to walk inside to eat. This sounds as though our Cunning-Cunning 
were a selfish bird, but he was never that. Every minute or two he would come out 
and stand aside while the Lady put her hand into the bag for food for his friends. 



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He was so gentle that often the Lady lifted him in her hand, and, when she put him 
down on the window-ledge, he would go right back into the bag for more good 

things to eat. 



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Cunning-Cunning Knew That It Was His Window 












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CHAPTER IV 

BROWNIE’S EXPLORATION 

It was a warm morning in spring. A little brown pigeon looked wistfully in 
at the window. She was very brown and very young. Ever since she had learned to 
fly, she had come each morning to take breakfast with Cunning-Cunning, Cunmng- 



\ 

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ette, the Acrobat, and all the other pigeons who were friends of Cunning-Cunning; 
and always she had looked in at the window and wondered what sort of a big nest 
it was where the Lady lived. 

This morning Little Brown Bird had come early—she was determined to 
make an exploration trip, to see all there was to see inside that window. For a long 
time she stood on one foot, her shining rose and green neck stretched out as far as it 
would stretch, as she looked up and down and all about the room. The Lady seemed 



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fast asleep—there was not a sound except the soft swish of the window shade as 
the fresh morning breeze blew it to and fro. Brownie’s heart beat fast. She lifted 
her wings and flew to an arm of the big easy-chair close by. The Lady lay still. Surely 
she was fast asleep and would not mind if Little Brown Bird visited about her room. 


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In the park there are little boys and girls to play with, and nice tree-branches on 
which to perch. Corners of ledges on buildings are wonderful places from which to 



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watch all that happens in the street below. But now Brownie saw a new place 
to perch wTere she would be able to look all about the Lady’s room. Straight to the 
bed where the Lady’s foot raised the white sheet to a point she flew. Then she saw 
easily all the things she had so longed to understand. The silver on the bureau shone; 
even brighter was the nickel of the water faucets, and the mirror was a mystery of 
light. For a long, long time Brownie stood on the tips of the Lady’s toes and looked, 
and looked. The Lady was laughing silently, but she kept her foot still, and Little 
Brown Bird never guessed that the Lady was awake. 

And now it was almost time to fly back to the window-ledge, for all the birds would 
be coming for breakfast. “What would the Lady think if she woke to And me on 


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Crowding Each Other in Their Eagerness 













her bed!” She seemed a quite different Lady, lying there against the pillows, from 
the friend Brownie knew so well, and out of whose hands she ate so often, among the 
birds crowding each other in their eagerness. Was it really the Lady? It would 
never do to go back to the window until she made sure. Down from her perch on 
the Lady’s foot she flew, and walked right up the bed until she came close to the Lady’s 
face. Then it was hard for the Lady to keep from saying, “Yes”; for it was just as if 
Brownie had asked, “Is this my Lady-friend?” 

“Oo-oo! Oo-oo!” Cunning-Cunning and His Merry Comrades have come. 
Fast her wings beat the air as Brownie flew to join her friends by the rose-bush. 


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